FoodScanner: Track Your Diet by Scanning Your Food

FoodScanner is an iPhone and iPod Touch app that uses the camera on your device to scan the barcode of the food you're about to eat to view nutrition information about that food, automatically enter it into your log, and keep track of your calorie intake for the day.

If you're trying to count calories or even just track your diet what you're eating, you're probably keeping a log of some kind to record the meals that you eat. At the same time, it can be pretty difficult to keep track of the content of foods that you eat when you do a lot of home cooking or prepare packaged meals. Enter FoodScanner, an iPhone and iPod Touch app that uses the camera on your device to scan the barcode of the food you're about to eat to view nutrition information about that food, automatically enter it into your log, and keep track of your calorie intake for the day.

FoodScanner is available now in the iTunes App Store for $2.99 and requires iOS 4.0 to run. The app works on the iPhone 3G, 3GS, and the iPhone 4, but only supports the latest iPod Touch that has a camera. You don't have to use the camera to enter food into your log, but the app works best and is most convenient when you can scan a package that you've pulled from the pantry to instantly view its nutritional details and add it to your log. You can enter food names manually as well, if you have an iPod Touch without a camera.

Once you have the app installed, the app lets you see complete nutritional labels on your phone if the label on the package is incomplete, and you can store favorite foods for quick access if you're scanning something that you purchase on a regular basis. As you add foods to your log, FoodScanner updates your daily caloric intake and shows you a report of what you've eaten during the day and how many calories you've eaten. The app has a database of over 200,000 foods that it pulls from, and the app is incredibly simple to use.

FoodScanner is especially useful if you have an account at DailyBurn. The app can synchronize your meals with your DailyBurn account and you can use all of the tools on the Web to keep track of your diet, including in-depth history, breakdown by types of foods, analysis of your biggest meals versus your smallest ones, and more.

Even though the app will set you back a few dollars, FoodScanner can be specifically useful for people with health conditions who need to track the foods they eat, or people who find themselves eating a lot of packaged meals from the frozen foods or non-perishables sections of the grocery stores. At the same time, it's more difficult to use if you're a home cook and you make most of your meals from scratch - but if you make most of your meals from scratch, you likely have a better handle on what's in them. Back to top